PTI - Are You More Confident in the Dodgers or Padres?

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss first impressions of the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays playoff baseball, recap the Penix-led Falcons MNF win, and react to Eagles veteran OT Lane Johnson surprise retirement and the impact it may cause. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Discover coffee plus on nispresso.com. but I'm Mike Wilbon. There are three 17-year-olds who can play for the United States men's soccer team tonight, Tony. What were you doing at 17? I'm Tony Coronizer. Let's see.

TJ had just closed the Louisiana purchase, I believe. Todd Jones? When I was 17. Todd Jones? No. No. Thomas Jefferson. TJ.

I mean, that's what we called. Oh, okay. I can, if you know, if you went to the university, you're calling it. Oh. Oh, yeah. The University. I think you have someone in your family who went to the university. Don't remind me. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, the Dodgers and Padres try to

bounce back. The Falcons crushed the Saints and Jeff Saturday joins us for five good minutes. But we begin today with baseball. The baseball that was played last night, American League playoff baseball. Tampa Bay benefited from four Yankee errors and chased Cam Schlittler in the fifth inning on their way to a 5-2 victory that gives the raise a 2-0 lead in that series. And the Chicago White Sox, owners of the worst regular season record currently still in the playoffs, beat Cleveland in Cleveland to go 2-0 in that series. Wilbon, which team has impressed you more so far? To White Sox by a million miles.

Tampa's supposed to do this. They finished with the best record in the America League, the only great record in America League. Tampa supposed to do this. Okay, so they are. The White Sox. Tony, I told you, because you kept asking me all. summer are you going to start paying attention you're going to i didn't start till labor day

tony there's a bounce in their step there's an energy there's an unpredictability venable i started paying attention to their manager who the hell is this guy who played basketball at princeton the relief court it doesn't seem like he does anything by rote everything's a surprise but they just have an energy about them that is irresistible particularly when i had to compare them to my team, eight miles away the Cubs, who were just flatline dead by Labor Day. The White Sox have done this. There's nothing.

There's no blueprint for what they're doing, and yet they've gone to Cleveland and taken the first two games. Yeah, I'm going to have no disagreements here, and I'm probably going to be briefer than I normally would have been had you gone the other way. I don't know anything about the White Sox, except when Tim Kirchon told me yesterday on my podcast.

He said two things. They swing it every. everything, everything, and they score a lot of runs. And they use their relief pitchers earlier and longer than any team in baseball, which is what happened last night. Sean Burke gave them five and a third of relief that only gave up one hit. And then they brought in Grant Taylor to get four outs. And it got scary.

And I know you were watching and I was watching. Because the first guy up, Joe Dell, hits it off the wall for an RBI triple that makes the score four to three at that point. Now Taylor, Taylor goes one, two, three in a ninth, but it's a scary one, two, three. They're hitting the ball. They're popping him. They're hitting the ball. I think that the last out went all the way to the warning track. Look, I mean, I'm not diminishing Tampa Bay at all. Right. But you're exactly right. Your friend Chris rocks and you don't get credit for doing what you're supposed to do. And it's exactly what Milwaukee is doing in the other league. I will say this. Tampa is dominant.

the Yankee hitters smothering them. You take Ben Rice out of this series. The Yankees have no runs and three hits. People not named Ben Rice for the Yankees are batting 0.53, something like that. So, boom. The boss, George Steinbrenner, wouldn't be happy. Roll it over in his grave. Let's move to the National League tone in Atlanta tonight.

The Dodgers in Yamamoto to the mound against Chris Sale in the series that the Braves just tied a game of baseball. peace and later in San Diego. The Padres try to stay alive against the Brewers after Milwaukee, one too tight ones including that fraudulent one at home. Tom, do you have faith in either or both the National League West teams, Dodgers Padres, to bounce back tonight? Faith is a very strong word.

I cannot say that I have faith. Let me amend that a little bit here and let me go to my notes because that's why I have the notes. Look, I think the Dodgers are a better team than Atlanta. but they've got Chris Sale to deal with tonight. You know, they've got Yamamoto, who is a terrific pitcher. They have the most amount of road wins in baseball this year, 49. You know, but faith against Chris Sale, I can't really go that far.

Now, I think the Padres could win tonight. I do. The Padres are very good at their home park. The Padres record is 51 and 30 there, which is tied with the third best record, baseball for home percentage. You know, and Milwaukee is starting, Dustin Mayo, has not had good numbers this year.

7 and 9 with a 474 ERA, and since he got to Milwaukee at the trade deadline, it's 565. That's a terrible ERA, and the Padres hit. But again, faith, I'm not going out. Yeah, I'm with you, Tone, because some strange things have happened already in this series. So the whole thing with Milwaukee,

I think he's a sacrificial lamb tonight, and this is the game the Padres get. This is the game the Padres get 9 to 2. And then Milwaukee still the best team. You know, I think Hawaii I hate saying that, but I think Milwaukee's the best team. The other series, man, Chris Sale. I'm in on Chris Sale. I'm not going to go with the word faith.

But if you ask me if I had a draft King's account on my phone and I don't, who would I be betting on that? I'm going to bet on Chris Sale. He's looked good. I think it was brilliant to push him back. back and give him an extra, a little bit of extra rest. They could have started him on four days' rest. They did not. You give sale every chance to come in and dominate because he can do that.

Yes. So I'm going to go with Atlanta tonight to take a two one lead, and I'm going to go with the Padres to take a two one lead. But like you, Faith is a little much. Now, the Padres would have a one. I'm sorry. One two deficit. One and two.

Yes. Here's, I think the Dodgers can still win the series, but they've got to get something out of Otani. Since August 18th, he has no home runs in one RBI, and they've got to build rallies, Mike. They are stranding so many runners in scoring position. They got to get to game five, because that's when they have Tarrick Scouble.

Let's go to football, where last night Atlanta went on the road to division rival New Orleans, and they pounded the Saints 45-24. Falcons are now 2-0 when Michael Pennix Jr. is starting, and they are averaging 40, 4-0 points a game with him as opposed to the eight points a game they scored without him. Bejohn Robinson had 19 carries for 145 yards and two touchdowns,

including a 59-yard Gallup. Wilbon, what's the word for how the Falcons have been playing their last two games? Here's the word. Uh-oh. That's my word, okay? Because they look, or I can use a real word, nuclear. They look like they understand that the formula, because Tony, it doesn't just, it doesn't stop with just the offense.

production. And God knows, Bejohn Robinson. Okay, so yesterday I ran my mouth and I said that Bryce Young was the MVP. Scratch that. Bejohn Robinson's the MVP because he can run you over. He doesn't need to

toss it to somebody with an 81 on his jersey. He will run you over and take you out. We just saw him do it and we saw him do it last week to the Packers. Yeah. Tony, they're trouble. They're going to be trying. And they know it. And what happens is that defense, when you control the ball like that and have time of possession in your favor.

And I believe Atlanta and the Bears are right there leading the league for time of possession. Your defense comes on the field fresh and they take people out on the other side of the ball. So you've helped every element of what you're doing. Man, Atlanta looks good. I know it's two games. They look good. So I have a word to describe Atlanta, but it's two words. Shockingly dominating.

Yeah. They crushed Green Bay, 3514 at Green Bay. Last night they crushed New Orleans, 4524 at New Orleans. Right now on the road, they are the Chicago White Sox of the NFL. They're not losing it all on the road. And they're doing it on the ground. It's old school football. Let me give you these other numbers.

205 yards last night rushing and five touchdowns. The week before, 242 rushing in three touchdowns. The NFL hasn't seen those sort of. of rushing numbers since Jim Brown. I mean, this is remarkable rushing numbers. Penix has to get a lot of credit in this regard. Now you see, now I understand why they drafted him in the first round when they had just signed Kurt Cousins.

He's been very efficient. He's completing 73% of his passes and he doesn't seem to have a personal agenda. He's willing to let the team do what it does best. And I think that's important. And Kevin Stefanski looks like he knows what he's doing right now. And not everybody said that beforehand. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, but then they had bad times at the end in Cleveland.

They did. So they look, they look very good. Let's take a break. Coming up, we will ask Jeff Saturday when he thinks about Giants running back, Cam Scataboo, laying guys out. We'll also ask him whether he heard a lot of cussing in his time from NFL referees. I know he did. Mike, I have been a critical of the Falcons. Me too.

They were clowns the last two years. Tony. I need to shut up. We both did this. I'm wrong. My apologies to the nurse Michael Lewis. He knows every week I've been killing them on the falcons. I got to wait for this particular weather front to pass through before I take them on again.

Man. Because I look like a dope. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose. the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract.

Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on espresso.com. Let's dig into the NFL trenches with our great friend ESPN NFL analyst Jeff Saturday. And we're going to start with this was kind of sort of breaking news. Five-time All-Pro Lane Johnson of the Eagles retired this afternoon to focus on what he called, quote, personal and family priorities, unquote. Obviously, we wish him the best, but we also wonder we're losing a player of this caliber

leaves the Eagles who have not looked good lately anyway. Yeah, look, I'll say this. Lane Johnson's been the most dominant right tackle in the game in the past decade or two. I mean, he is that guy where he's an eraser, right? There's few and far between, but he's one of those. guys. So congrats on an insanely good career to he, wish he and his family the absolute best. That's a piece that you can't fill immediately. Like, I don't care. I don't care how good, whoever the next guy, next man up, principal, all the nonsense. Every coach tries to sell you.

It ain't the same. And whoever's replacing him, they got their work cut out for him. But the Eagles will have to figure this out. They have a number of different issues, right? They've had to move Juergens over because of it. Dickerson being out. They've struggled there. They struggled to offensive line-wise. Goddard's hurt, Smith's hurt. Everybody's hurt, man. They got a lot of things going on. You know, you heard Siriani talking about the identity. Identity has been defined by physicality. Losing a guy like Lane Johnson makes that twofold. Like it's really hard to replace physicality when you go from a guy like him to whoever else is trying to do it behind him. One guy who ain't heard is

down at Atlanta wearing number seven. But I want to ask it in a more general sense about Atlanta's run game, Jeff. Is it line play? Is it scheme system? Or is it just Bijan Robinson being great? Oh, it's all three. It's all three. When you think about Stefanski, he had great run design and Callan.

They had great run designs in Cleveland as well. But what you're seeing is one of the better off. offensive lines in the NFL get coached up with a great scheme and then a back who can set it up as well as anybody to ever do it. I was fortunate I played with under Edron James, Joseph Adai, Dominique Rhodes, right? These guys understood as they approached the line of scrimmage, they wanted to set your blocks, which means they would give a hesitation or a jab step, and wherever you were, however you were covered up on the defensive linemen, they would make your block right. That is what Bejohn does so effectively well. You saw it on the third play of the game.

You saw him go up. There's an unblocked will linebacker who Bijan is quote responsible for. And as he's approaching a lot of scrimmage, he gives a little head nod and sticks his foot in the ground. The linebacker steps up. He goes outside 59 yards later. Baby, he's celebrating. Like, it's special. So the combination of all three has been such a joy to watch for me. And obviously, the other Robinson comes in. Five touchdowns on the night. Us in Atlanta, we fired up for this run game. It's big time.

I want to ask you, this is bizarre to me because the NFL has suspended my man, Jeff Seaman. For swearing at Trey McBride, Jeff, you were on the field forever. It seemed to me that salty language is just a part of every Sunday all Sunday. Am I wrong? How was the NFL suspended Jeff Seaman for this?

I'm surprised as well. Look, you, there's a lot of things said on a football field that we're not going to say on national television, right? Like, this is not, you know, there's a lot of language that gets used. And I would be cussed at by referees in frustration. They get talked to like dogs. I mean, coaches are at them, players are at them. It's constant, right? Like, these guys, and it don't matter because they can't be right, right? If I'm happy with them, the defense is upset and vice versa. And so I'm kind of with you. The problem is it's a game where however many cameras are on, they catch this one moment. It's out of context. We don't even know what happened. And I don't like guys talking to each other like that either way.

But suspensions, like, you know, I'm not really sure what was said or what, because the league typically doesn't do this. So I don't know if it just went above and beyond what's normal. They're supposed to be the referees are supposed to be calming the situation. But what you're going to see now is a bunch of things. more flags because you and I both know if you talk to me a certain way, if I can't respond, okay, here's what I can do. And so those 15 yards, 15 yarders are going to mount up because they're tired of being talked to that way as well. Man, all right. Don't worry about the language. This is cable. It's different. We can do what you want. We'll get you out of here on this.

Giants running back Cam Scataboo has been creating highlights with his blocking. How does it change thing for an offensive line when you have a running back who can lay a guy out. Just lay them out. Oh, there is nothing more fun than going back to tape after that after that game and rewinding it and showing everybody on offense how you're running back ran through the chest of a linebacker or a defensive end and put him on his butt or back. I saw it. I highlighted it this morning. He's up in the trees, which means he's at the line of scrimmage. Linebackers coming down. He giving him that shiver and dropping them. And let me tell you, For an offensive lineman, we want to block even harder for you because we know you're a full participant.

You're not just wanting to run it. You're willing to do the dirty work with us. We absolutely love it. Scataboo is setting tone and bringing the noise, man. It's fun to watch, baby. That's great. Thank you, Jeff, as always. I appreciate you, man.

Love you, fellas. Appreciate y'all. Let's take one last break still to come. It's not looking good for Lamar Jackson at the moment. No, it's not. And will the teenagers on the U.S. U.S. men's soccer team deliver again tonight against Canada. The NFL.

That's how Scataboo, that's how he stays in the league and earns his salary. He hits people. He's a full participant. Yeah, full participants are great description. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $26 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck. and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields, like software development and information technology.

Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose ginseng to live.

light. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on espresso.com. Happy time. People happy 27th birthday Trevor Lawrence. Sneaky young, considering it feels like Lawrence has been around forever. We first heard of them as a freshman at Clemson in 2018 when he had 30 touchdowns and four interceptions. Clemson won the national championship. That's when you fell in love with him. Yep, I did. Lawrence was the number one overall

picked by Jacksonville in 2021. I think his pro career has been mildly disappointing, but he has flourished lately under Liam Cohn. So far, the Jaguars are three and one. Lawrence has eight touchdown passes and two picks, completing 69.2% of his passes. Excuse me, there's a stat

that Lawrence's off-target throws are only 8.1%, which is a significant improvement. And the Jaguars have beaten Cincinnati, New England, Cleveland so far. Yeah, I thought he was the best college quarterback I'd seen until Joe Burrow came along a couple of years later. But you know, Joe Burrow, yeah, he got to that one Super Bowl. Other than that, you're still wondering what's happened to him. Those guys are still young enough and talented enough to have big careers in their late 20s.

Happy anniversary Phil Necro. This is posthumous. But on this day, 41 years ago, the 46-year-old with a legendary knuckleball, then throwing for the Yankee. Yankees pitched a complete game 8-0 shutout against Toronto on the final day of the regular season to win the 300th game of his illustrious career. NECRO would then add another 18 wins and finish up with a record of 318 and 274 and a ticket to Cooperstown. NECRO got his final win for Cleveland over the Angels at age 48. 48. NECRO's lifetime ERA was 3.35. Phil's brother Joe also had a long major league career, finishing with a 221-204 record and a 359 ERA.

So between them, the Necro brothers had 539 wins. But wins don't matter now, right? Nobody cares about wins. No, because there's some young moron sitting in the dugout holding the phone to the bullpen saying you can't get through the lineup a third straight time. That's how far baseball's falling. No.

Happy trails, Lamar Jackson? The Ravens quarterback is reported to have only an outside chance of playing against the Falcons on Sunday. Jackson missed the second half of the Ravens win over the Titans after spraining his left ankle. Reports say Jackson could end up missing several games, but that surgery should not be required. The Ravens are 79 and 32 when Jackson starts, but just six and 11 without him. And Tyler Huntley is Jackson's backup. Tony, we need to observe the passing, sadly, of sudden Sam McDowell. I mean, you and I watched him a lot in our lives, died at 84 years old,

six-time All-Star, five-time strikeout champ. Sam McDowell was a staple for those Cleveland teams that maybe couldn't eclipse some of the better full teams. But I'll tell you, if you had Sam McDowell going for you every fourth day, you were in pretty damn good shape, weren't you? Yeah, am I mistaken about this or was in the television show Cheers? Was Sam Malone? Sam Malone's character was based in part on Sudden Sam McDowell. Yes.

One of my favorite characters in all time. I'm just going to go back to the Lamar Jackson thing. You know, he's a great, great player, and the record proves it out. But don't you also get the sense that he's not around, you know, to win in the playoffs? and that it's not where it should be with that talent. Am I wrong on that? But he's like Joe Burrow. Those guys are still young enough, Tony.

They got a lot of time left. Yes. So I don't want to judge the short sample size. Okay. Alexander Barkoff will be out six to eight weeks for the Panthers with a leg injury. Is that a big loss? Tony, it is when you lose the best defensive center in the league. He missed all of last regular season, too.

The Panthers suffer without him. They need him back, Maca Sellebrini. This last night's shark's game with a lower body injury concerned. I don't know the specifics of it, but nobody's playing 84 games. Charlie Towns says he and the Knicks are not close on an extension. Is that a big deal? No, they'll get a deal. Didn't we just go through this with Steph Curry a few weeks ago?

See, how Carl Anthony Towns is not as automatic, but he's not going to get a deal? The U.S. men's soccer team hosts Canada tonight in St. Paul, Minnesota. If they win that, those teenagers are going to be 4-0, and they will have beaten the World Cup co-hosts, Mexico and Canada. Last one, Lionel Messi's international career ends tonight in Argentina against the mean. What are your feelings about that? It's messy. It's the last game of his international career. It's a huge deal.

People will celebrate him, 85,000 will make a speech and wear gold stuff. Pretty good time for Mr. Messy. We're out of time. Trying to better the next time. I'm Tony Corny. I'm Mike Robbins. Same time tomorrow. knuckleheads.